A Study On Consumer Purchase Intention Towards Functional Dairy Products In Bengaluru North

Abstract

Functional dairy products are healthy products of the future including probiotics, energy-boosting foods and those enriched with vitamins and minerals. Dairy products such as yogurt and cheese containing probiotics and milk containing omega-3 fatty acids have a prominent position in the development of functional foods. Functional dairy products market is growing steadily. Functional products benefits and health claims are highlighted in the front of pack labelling and nutritional labelling. Consumer awareness and perception related to these products have an important role in consumers’ acceptance and subsequently long-term marketplace success of these products. The purpose of this paper is to know if the consumers prefer functional dairy products. The decision of whether the product is functional depends on nutritional labelling also.The findings were that almost all participants were unfamiliar with the term “functional dairy products,” and few had consumed these products. Functional dairy products were not found to be necessary for some participants. Quantitative research approach was adopted in this research project to test pre-determined hypotheses and to generalize the results. Functional products that are used in a given month included probiotic milk, yoghurt, organic milk .The frequency of purchase of functional dairy products is 2 times a week and low fat cheese is purchased only once a week . If the health claims on the front of pack labelling is good purchase of functional dairy products is high as found out from the study.The participants were of the opinion that information provided from a trusted and credible source such as health professionals or authorities through different communication channels like television, training classes, shopping centre would create awareness about functional dairy products. There was a significant association between health consciousness and usage of functional dairy products. Consumers who care about their health give special importance to usage of functional dairy products.  The results indicated that "Nutrition Label" had significant effects on "Reason to evaluate" and "Purchase Intention". In addition, "Reason to evaluate" also had a significant effect on "Purchase intention". Interestingly, female respondents and respondents with higher income had significant effects on "Reason to evaluate" which subsequently affected "Purchase intention”. Data was analysed with the help of SPSS tools.